Artist

Mrs Merryman’s Collection

MACK Books – Anne Sophie Merryman

Mrs Merryman’s Collection is a collection of original postcards that document the discoveries of Mrs Merryman between 1937 and 1980, which was inherited by her granddaughter. She was a keen collector with an eye for the unusual. The images in the collection are not exactly what you would expect from a 1930’s travel keepsake. Some of the images are mundane and surreal and seem a bit insignificant to travel or location and instead show an inside look to that particular moment or memory. Mrs Merryman never actually travelled which makes her collection more intriguing and insightful, looking into the mind of a woman with a sharp eye and maybe a desire for adventure.

The book presents the postcards together which create a story of two different lives; one life lived travelling through postcard images and the other whose life and relationship to her past and present were influenced by the collection.

Having the postcards presented in the form of a book to tell a narrative is an interesting way to look at old postcards in a conceptual way. I like the idea of presenting postcards out of the norm and is something I could consider doing but at the same time I think it removes a lot of the intention behind a postcard. The interaction you get with a postcard and book are different and in terms of creating a fragmented interactive narrative, having actual postcards may be more intriguing than creating a book.